Jia Peixiao, left, watches his workers process online orders in the family home in east China'?s Shandong province that he has converted into a thriving e-commerce business. / Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

by Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

by Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

WANTOU VILLAGE, China â?? With strong stitches and well-worn hands, Wei Haiying added another finished cushion to the ceiling-high piles already crowding her east China home. For centuries, the women of Wantou village have woven its abundant willow straw into useful products, but for little profit.

Then Jack Ma and Alibaba came along, to spread some money-making magic. Resting from her labors, Wei, 39, checked a computer Wednesday for the latest online orders. "Now we run our own business, we have more freedom, more income, and it's better than working for others," said Wei, whose monthly income has doubled in the past year to $1,600, far above the local average.

Blending traditional skills with modern marketing, Wei's little success story forms a tiny part of the super-sized Alibaba e-commerce narrative that Ma offers to U.S. investors. Already an A-list business billionaire in China, where he has dressed as Lady Gaga to entertain employees, Ma, 49, will score more fame and fortune when his firm gets a U.S. listing, in what is likely to prove one of history's biggest ever IPOs.

In 1999, English teacher and kung fu novel fan Ma founded Alibaba in an apartment in the city of Hangzhou, with backing from 17 friends. He faced stiff odds, such as setting up an online payment system in a nation where hardly anyone had credit cards. Now Alipay, like a Chinese Paypal, has over 800 million registered users, and its mother ship Alibaba is an Internet monster, grabbing more online trade than eBay and Amazon combined.

Alibaba resembles both. Its eBay-like marketplace Taobao, which means "treasure hunt," allows budding entrepreneurs like weaver Wei to set up and run an online store, for free. The site has 7 million sellers offering hundreds of millions of items. On Alibaba's business-to-consumer site Tmall, called "heavenly cat" in Chinese, over 70,000 brands, including Gap and Apple, operate storefronts, for a fee.

In Wantou village, in coastal Shandong province, e-commerce even overshadows Communist Party propaganda. Wall slogans exhorting the one-child policy fade fast, but no one can miss fresher phrases such as "Rushing about away from home, from east to west, doesn't beat doing Taobao at home."

So many of its 4,700 residents engage in e-commerce, almost exclusively on Taobao, that Alibaba ranks Wantou among at least 20 "Taobao villages" in China. The firm's definition requires over 10 percent of households to be operating online stores, and village e-commerce annual revenue must exceed $1.6 million.

"We really thank Taobao, it's brought us wealth," Wei Haiying said. Two years ago, Wei stopped weaving for wholesalers. Her husband quit his job as a driver. Teaching themselves how to use computers, they set up a Taobao store. Now they regularly go online to shop too, for clothes and shoes for their daughter. "It's cheap and convenient," said Wei.

The ease of Taobao shopping, and expectation of bargains, helped her neighbor become a local star. An early convert, Jia Peixiao, 34, sold $1.3 million of willow straw and rattan products in 2013 and expects to double that volume this year. Inside the family's courtyard home, Jia sits beside a poster of Jack Ma.

"Many people in the village and elsewhere consider Ma a god," said Jia, who ranks him highly, after reading some of the popular Ma biographies that fill China's airport bookshops, but not to divinity. "He's a man who dares to do things, he has created a new era, an era of e-commerce," Jia said.

Earlier in his career, Ma was labeled a cheat and a madman, but his success, fortune and maverick streak have since endeared him to most Chinese. In recent years, Ma has been called the Godfather of business start-ups, the Napoleon of the IT world, and even a grass-roots hero. Unusual for a Chinese boss, he also makes fun of himself, such as dressing as Snow White, or Lady Gaga, for Alibaba's annual party.

Jia, a computer science graduate, appears a model disciple, having moved on from Taobao to create his own brand, Munuan, that now operates a Tmall store, for a $10,000 annual fee. Most customers are urban, female white-collar workers between 18 and 35, he said.

Beijing housewife Zhang Jingwen, 28, loves Taobao for cheap prices and the online guidance of previous buyers but prefers traditional shopping centers for higher-quality purchases, she said. Using a Taobao app on her iPhone, she enjoys discounts buying daily toiletries, but, like many online shoppers worldwide, can't resist the gimmicks either. Zhang's favorite Taobao purchase was the "alarm clock for lazy people," which rings and flees on wheels, forcing the sleeper to chase. "But my husband didn't like it, so it's a waste of money in the end," she said.

Transformation

"If I met Jack Ma, I would thank him and say 'you not only changed our lives, but also our whole village,' " said Meng Lili, 32, Jia's wife, who is eight months pregnant with their second child and still works the computers as one of nine employees fielding orders.

Jia's illiterate mother appears stunned by the sharp change in family fortunes. An Shouhua, 61, learned weaving at age 9, and never went to school. "No woman in the village could find a husband without skill in weaving," she said. Government officials used to collect her woven goods â?? and pay just $0.5 a day, An said.

Her son now plans a holiday to the USA or Europe, as the first time Jia and his family will have left China. "We're middle class now, we can afford it," he said.

His dad, Jia Chunwen, 62, still grows wheat and corn on the family's typically small plot, but is prouder of his computer skills, and ability to chat with former navy comrades over QQ, a messaging service run by major Alibaba rival Tencent.

More than 600 million Chinese now use the Internet, just under half the entire population. In Wantou's Communist Party-run village committee, Deputy Secretary Jia Chuncui, 58, has no computer in his office or home but supports the e-commerce trend. "You don't need a large space, or much funding, and you can still farm your land," Jia said. The government has offered land cheaply for a large Taobao Mall now under construction.

Rural China generally loses its children, to toil as migrant workers in distant cities. Wantou sees them return to join its e-commerce boom. Inside a former dentist's clinic, Jiao Chuanlei, 24, runs one of 20 courier companies in the village. "It's all because of Taobao there are so many couriers here," he says.

Critics of the Chinese Internet complain that copycat businesses pre-dominate, Communist Party censorship inhibits innovation, and counterfeit goods still flow freely. Jia Peixiao says Taobao sellers are under pressure from the public to provide higher quality, legitimate goods.

"We all want our platform to be ever bigger and better, so the cake will be bigger for all of us to eat," said Jia, already enjoying the taste of a better life. Tuesday, a Taobao delivery man arrived with his latest order â?? highly expensive, edible bird's nests, from one of many Taobao sites specializing in Chinese delicacies.